Recruiter Hyphen has revealed research that suggests that staff feel more motivated over the promise of increased holiday than that of job security.

The research revealed that whilst a lot of employees would welcome the promise of a stop on their pay freeze or indeed a pay increase, 40 percent of the one thousand people interviewed would be more motivated by the promise of more holidays.

Of those who felt more motivated by extra holidays it was the 16-24 year old age bracket who took up most of this vote. This follows the idea that faced with a potentially long working future, more and more people are valuing the need for good work-life balance. With that in mind staff are more motivated knowing that they are working towards a holiday than they are compared to knowing that they have a job in that office for years and years to come. Perhaps this isn't surprising. Employers, should however, consider the positive effects that could come from this rather than assume it means their employee's hate their job and are demotivated. If an employer can use this research to harness the best from their employees they could be in line to experience greater productivity. In fact many employers already have by introducing more flexibility into the workplace. Giving  employees a choice about where and how they work, for example, part-time or from home, they are empowering them. In doing so they are motivating them, which in turn, can lead to greater productivity. The productivity then leads back to enhanced motivation, so it's a great cycle to get into.

The research also showed that it is female employees who value flexibility the most, traditionally taking on a larger part of the child rearing role this is again not surprising. Employers who are able to act flexibly are more likely to understand the fact that more and more employees are placing a higher value on non monetary rewards, flexibility can be one such reward. Clearly, in these austere times where costs of living are rising and jobs more difficult to hold on to, if employees are asking for flexibility it is something that they really do value, more than monetary factors even. Zain Wadee, MD of Hyphen said “sensible employers will take heed of this changing dynamic and ensure they open up communication with employees to understand what is truly important to their working life."

The research also suggested another area to improve motivation in the workplace, that being new management. A considerable proportion of employees feel that at lot of the problems in their workplace arise from poor management and believe that a new manager would improve things. Without the introduction of a new manager, a possible way to tackle this problem would be regular and meaningful team meetings or opportunity to submit suggestions. Such practices can again have a positive effect on the empowerment of staff and thus motivation. As the saying goes; work to live, don't live to work. So if all else fails when trying to motivate staff perhaps it's best you just give them a day off?